How Quartz is tinkering with new technology

Shan Wang of the Nieman Lab writes about the Quartz Bot Studio, which the financial news site is using to develop new bots for messaging platforms such as Slack and voice interfaces such as Amazon Echo or Google Home.

Wang writes, “Quartz has already made significant headway in bot experimentation. In February, it debuted a news app structured around the already familiar iMessage texting interface. It has employed a Slackbot for its Next Billion conference; the bot handles logistical questions like Wi-Fi logins and information on speakers and sessions. Its Daily Brief email is now available as a Flash Briefing on the Amazon Echo.

“Quartz hasn’t settled on exactly which bot-related projects it will build for which platforms, but ‘we want to make sure that the experiments cover a large variety of potential platforms and use cases, so that’s where we’re coming from,’ said Zach Seward, Quartz’s executive editor and VP of product (and former Nieman Lab staffer). Slack is one such promising platform. ‘If we’re going to make a tool or a set of automated tools for journalists — there are a few platforms you can imagine building bots for — I’d imagine we’d build something for Slack, with so many newsrooms operating largely on Slack now.’

“Another major project will likely be building for Amazon Echo or Google Home (though Google Home hasn’t yet opened up its API to developer). The exact form of the third project is still wide open.”

Chris Roush is the Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.